We Need Government Healthcare Like Canada!

[Ray From Cleveland]

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

We are discussing public health insurance, not government ownership of all hospitals. Try to stay focused.

Yes. Let's focus. If the government controls health insurance it will have control of hospitals and health care. They won't need literal ownership. If the government is paying, people will have to do what the government says or they won't get paid. When liberals aren't trying to pretend this away, they hold it up as a feature - because it gives government the de facto power to dictate lower prices for health care. It also gives them the power to dictate pretty much anything else they want in regards to health care in the same way.

Two things that the left doesn't address with their proposal. First, there are good doctors and bad doctors. There are good hospitals and not so good ones. If government is running the show, we would all want the good doctors and facilities, wouldn't we? And since that would be completely impossible to do, how would government go about deciding who gets what?

Secondly, since government only pays about 2/3 of the cost for medical services, and the price is upped to recoup that lost money from private pay and insured patients, what happens when it's government paying all? Are medical personnel just going to have to work for much less money?

No one's weeding out bad anything now. The market, let the buyer beware, and lose your mortgage over illness maybe.

Nobody is weeding out bad anything now? Where do you live? Over here, it's known where the good places are to go. The not so good places are used by people that don't have insurance, have good insurance, or government programs.

An Uncle of mine died some years ago in a hospital known for it's inability to handle critical situations. He didn't have any money and his insurance was shit. An autopsy was never done, but had he been able to get to the Cleveland Clinic, it's likely he'd still be alive today. The other place didn't even know what was wrong with him.

Now if everybody is equal with government healthcare, nobody would want to go to that facility because of their reputation. Everybody would want to go to the best care facilities, which again, would be impossible to do.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Having worked in that business for ten years, I can tell you that it's government who makes billing so complicated and costly. One place I worked at for five years, we had meetings every Monday morning. Every other one of those Mondays had to do with new government requirements for billing either for government or private insurance patients. It used to drive the office women crazy.

Insurance companies are quite aware of billing complexity. Their claim is that people use their insurance for nickel and dime claims, instead of just major claims. So you see your doctor, the bill is a hundred bucks or so, and off to the paperwork arena for the fight.

The solution to that problem would be mandatory medical savings accounts. Say 1% of your gross pay deducted from your check just like the taxes you pay. You would choose the private bank or institution that handles that account. Then when you go to the hospital or ER, you pay by swiping your MSA card just like a credit card. The bill is paid in full on the spot which would lower their cost, you wouldn't need as many people working at the doctors or hospital, it would keep insurance companies out of the mix so less expense to them, and most people would not miss 1% of their pay.

Assuming we maintain a multi payer system which is mostly likely, MSAs are great idea. However, I don't see the logic in making MSAs mandatory when the insurance itself it not mandatory.

Most people think there are just two payers in the healthcare system, the patient and the insurance company. Whatever the insurance company doesn't pay, the patient pays. What could be simpler. This is a huge oversimplification and inaccurate. Eight in 10 people on traditional Medicare have some type of supplemental insurance, including employer-sponsored insurance, Medigap, and Medicaid. Having multiple plans is also common with non-retires, VA, Medicaid, Medicare, temporary insurance, and multiple employers. In case of accidents, we have to add in car insurance companies, and other accident insurance.

The first problem in a multi payer system is determining who will be the primary, and secondary and then determining how benefits are coordinated between payers. What makes the situation more complicated is that all the insurance companies have different rules that vary by state. Medicaid has different rules and reimbursement rates that also vary also by state. Also Medicaid coverage outside of the state varies.

In a true single payer system, there is no coordination of benefits, no primary and secondary payers, and no patient billing. There is only one payer whose rules and coverage is the same for all patients in every state, and that's Medicare. Eliminating thousands of insurance payers and millions of individual payers will save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Could be, if you want to be a slave to the government the rest of your life.

I just applied for my gun license renewal today. It expires on the 11th of this month. The soonest appointment I could get is April 27th. This is one of many examples why not to hand the government our healthcare. If our licenses were ran by a private industry, they wouldn't allow this to happen. They would hire more people, they would reorganize; get rid of red tape that need not be involved. They would send out notifications months ago about the backup. Something........

Instead, they do nothing because it's run by government. You can't get an appointment when you want it? We are almost two months behind? Too bad, you lose. I don't want to see my healthcare ran the same way. When you eliminate competition, you eliminate the need to service the people properly. If my health insurance company is not meeting my expectations, I can always get another one. If a doctor or hospital is not meeting my expectations, I can always find another one.

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

You're a funny guy ray. Corporations are so anti monopoly.

The payer is single dumbass.

WTF do you mean the payer is single? Medicare for all is government healthcare. If that's what everybody has to use, then they make the calls.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Having worked in that business for ten years, I can tell you that it's government who makes billing so complicated and costly. One place I worked at for five years, we had meetings every Monday morning. Every other one of those Mondays had to do with new government requirements for billing either for government or private insurance patients. It used to drive the office women crazy.

Insurance companies are quite aware of billing complexity. Their claim is that people use their insurance for nickel and dime claims, instead of just major claims. So you see your doctor, the bill is a hundred bucks or so, and off to the paperwork arena for the fight.

The solution to that problem would be mandatory medical savings accounts. Say 1% of your gross pay deducted from your check just like the taxes you pay. You would choose the private bank or institution that handles that account. Then when you go to the hospital or ER, you pay by swiping your MSA card just like a credit card. The bill is paid in full on the spot which would lower their cost, you wouldn't need as many people working at the doctors or hospital, it would keep insurance companies out of the mix so less expense to them, and most people would not miss 1% of their pay.

Assuming we maintain a multi payer system which is mostly likely, MSAs are great idea. However, I don't see the logic in making MSAs mandatory when the insurance itself it not mandatory.

Most people think there are just two payers in the healthcare system, the patient and the insurance company. Whatever the insurance company doesn't pay, the patient pays. What could be simpler. This is a huge oversimplification and inaccurate. Eight in 10 people on traditional Medicare have some type of supplemental insurance, including employer-sponsored insurance, Medigap, and Medicaid. Having multiple plans is also common with non-retires, VA, Medicaid, Medicare, temporary insurance, and multiple employers. In case of accidents, we have to add in car insurance companies, and other accident insurance.

The first problem in a multi payer system is determining who will be the primary, and secondary and then determining how benefits are coordinated between payers. What makes the situation more complicated is that all the insurance companies have different rules that vary by state. Medicaid has different rules and reimbursement rates that also vary also by state. Also Medicaid coverage outside of the state varies.

In a true single payer system, there is no coordination of benefits, no primary and secondary payers, and no patient billing. There is only one payer whose rules and coverage is the same for all patients in every state, and that's Medicare. Eliminating thousands of insurance payers and millions of individual payers will save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Could be, if you want to be a slave to the government the rest of your life.

I just applied for my gun license renewal today. It expires on the 11th of this month. The soonest appointment I could get is April 27th. This is one of many examples why not to hand the government our healthcare. If our licenses were ran by a private industry, they wouldn't allow this to happen. They would hire more people, they would reorganize; get rid of red tape that need not be involved. They would send out notifications months ago about the backup. Something........

Instead, they do nothing because it's run by government. You can't get an appointment when you want it? We are almost two months behind? Too bad, you lose. I don't want to see my healthcare ran the same way. When you eliminate competition, you eliminate the need to service the people properly. If my health insurance company is not meeting my expectations, I can always get another one. If a doctor or hospital is not meeting my expectations, I can always find another one.

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

They being Medicare most certainly do have a monopoly now. Medicare or Medicaid is the primary health insurance for 75% of the retired over 65. Most employer private insurance and Medigap is secondary insurance. MediAdvantage plans are jointly funded by Medicare and a private insurance which operate under Medicare coverage and reimbursement rules.

If there actually existed a free market in private insurance, then it might actually serve some purpose in controlling Medicare. However, the opposite is the reality today. Private insurance bases it's coverage on Medicare and Medicaid coverage which is based on recommendations from healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment and service providers, and beneficiaries. Although rates are negotiated between private insurance and providers, the Medicare reimbursement rates set the standard. Whenever Medicare reimbursement rates increase, providers re-negotiate their contracts with insurance companies so rates don't vary much between Medicare and insurance companies.

Rates cannot be different for patients having different kinds of coverage. If they could, government patients would be charged 30% more than private so they didn't have to take a loss on those patients. The way they get around that is to charge everybody higher rates to recoup those losses.

The places that don't do that refuse new government patients unless of course, it's an emergency. They can keep their rates lower with mostly private insurance, thus get more contracts with insurance companies. This is why estimates by Sander's and Warren are flawed. They figured the cost to cover everybody based on what government pays now. A true cost would be what they pay for government patients now, plus an extra 30% because private insurance will no longer be there to make up those losses.

 

[Flopper]

Assuming we maintain a multi payer system which is mostly likely, MSAs are great idea. However, I don't see the logic in making MSAs mandatory when the insurance itself it not mandatory.

Most people think there are just two payers in the healthcare system, the patient and the insurance company. Whatever the insurance company doesn't pay, the patient pays. What could be simpler. This is a huge oversimplification and inaccurate. Eight in 10 people on traditional Medicare have some type of supplemental insurance, including employer-sponsored insurance, Medigap, and Medicaid. Having multiple plans is also common with non-retires, VA, Medicaid, Medicare, temporary insurance, and multiple employers. In case of accidents, we have to add in car insurance companies, and other accident insurance.

The first problem in a multi payer system is determining who will be the primary, and secondary and then determining how benefits are coordinated between payers. What makes the situation more complicated is that all the insurance companies have different rules that vary by state. Medicaid has different rules and reimbursement rates that also vary also by state. Also Medicaid coverage outside of the state varies.

In a true single payer system, there is no coordination of benefits, no primary and secondary payers, and no patient billing. There is only one payer whose rules and coverage is the same for all patients in every state, and that's Medicare. Eliminating thousands of insurance payers and millions of individual payers will save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Could be, if you want to be a slave to the government the rest of your life.

I just applied for my gun license renewal today. It expires on the 11th of this month. The soonest appointment I could get is April 27th. This is one of many examples why not to hand the government our healthcare. If our licenses were ran by a private industry, they wouldn't allow this to happen. They would hire more people, they would reorganize; get rid of red tape that need not be involved. They would send out notifications months ago about the backup. Something........

Instead, they do nothing because it's run by government. You can't get an appointment when you want it? We are almost two months behind? Too bad, you lose. I don't want to see my healthcare ran the same way. When you eliminate competition, you eliminate the need to service the people properly. If my health insurance company is not meeting my expectations, I can always get another one. If a doctor or hospital is not meeting my expectations, I can always find another one.

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

You're a funny guy ray. Corporations are so anti monopoly.

The payer is single dumbass.

WTF do you mean the payer is single? Medicare for all is government healthcare. If that's what everybody has to use, then they make the calls.

No, government healthcare is when government delivers the healthcare. Under Medicare for All, goverment replaces the insurance company. Your claim that people will be slaves to the government is pure speculation and IMHO is an exaggeration. What Medicare for All will look like, is completely undefined. At this point in time, it is a concept to move everyone with primary private health insurance to the existing Medicare system or some similar plan at some undefined date.

Medicare for All will most probably not be Medicare as we known and it will not it be for all. I believe the most likely outcome will be the gradual lowering of the Medicare age requirement in order to remove older adults from private insurance. It could also include people that have very expensive lifetime treatments such End Stage Renal failure which Medicare now pays 80% of the cost regardless of age. If this is where Medicare for All ends up, it will drastically reduce the cost of private insurance.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Could be, if you want to be a slave to the government the rest of your life.

I just applied for my gun license renewal today. It expires on the 11th of this month. The soonest appointment I could get is April 27th. This is one of many examples why not to hand the government our healthcare. If our licenses were ran by a private industry, they wouldn't allow this to happen. They would hire more people, they would reorganize; get rid of red tape that need not be involved. They would send out notifications months ago about the backup. Something........

Instead, they do nothing because it's run by government. You can't get an appointment when you want it? We are almost two months behind? Too bad, you lose. I don't want to see my healthcare ran the same way. When you eliminate competition, you eliminate the need to service the people properly. If my health insurance company is not meeting my expectations, I can always get another one. If a doctor or hospital is not meeting my expectations, I can always find another one.

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

You're a funny guy ray. Corporations are so anti monopoly.

The payer is single dumbass.

WTF do you mean the payer is single? Medicare for all is government healthcare. If that's what everybody has to use, then they make the calls.

No, government healthcare is when government delivers the healthcare. Under Medicare for All, goverment replaces the insurance company. Your claim that people will be slaves to the government is pure speculation and IMHO is an exaggeration. What Medicare for All will look like, is completely undefined. At this point in time, it is a concept to move everyone with primary private health insurance to the existing Medicare system or some similar plan at some undefined date.

Medicare for All will most probably not be Medicare as we known and it will not it be for all. I believe the most likely outcome will be the gradual lowering of the Medicare age requirement in order to remove older adults from private insurance. It could also include people that have very expensive lifetime treatments such End Stage Renal failure which Medicare now pays 80% of the cost regardless of age. If this is where Medicare for All ends up, it will drastically reduce the cost of private insurance.

I think what you fail to understand is the difference with money between the state and private insurance. When you pay your premium with private insurance, that money gets invested. The profits from those investments helps to pay the claims. With government, they take your money and put it under a mattress until needed gaining no profit.

Insurance companies also have divisions to detect fraud. That saves them billions of dollars. Government? Unless somebody happens to notice something very strange, Medicare and Medicaid get ripped off tens of billions of dollars every year.

You are correct on one thing, and that is we don't know what a Medicare for All system will look like. But if we allow it to happen, it will be nearly impossible to change back once it's realized as a failure. Then we will be stuck with a worse system than we have now.

My proposition is this: we can have both. We take all the people with preexisting conditions that can't afford high insurance rates, and allow them to buy into Medicare. That removes all the high risk patients from the insurance pool which would greatly lower insurance costs. Unlike ObamaCare, Medicare is relatively affordable, and the coverage is superior to Commie Care plans.

Then both sides can be happy, because that is a more than fair compromise between government and private coverage.

 

[Flopper]

Assuming we maintain a multi payer system which is mostly likely, MSAs are great idea. However, I don't see the logic in making MSAs mandatory when the insurance itself it not mandatory.

Most people think there are just two payers in the healthcare system, the patient and the insurance company. Whatever the insurance company doesn't pay, the patient pays. What could be simpler. This is a huge oversimplification and inaccurate. Eight in 10 people on traditional Medicare have some type of supplemental insurance, including employer-sponsored insurance, Medigap, and Medicaid. Having multiple plans is also common with non-retires, VA, Medicaid, Medicare, temporary insurance, and multiple employers. In case of accidents, we have to add in car insurance companies, and other accident insurance.

The first problem in a multi payer system is determining who will be the primary, and secondary and then determining how benefits are coordinated between payers. What makes the situation more complicated is that all the insurance companies have different rules that vary by state. Medicaid has different rules and reimbursement rates that also vary also by state. Also Medicaid coverage outside of the state varies.

In a true single payer system, there is no coordination of benefits, no primary and secondary payers, and no patient billing. There is only one payer whose rules and coverage is the same for all patients in every state, and that's Medicare. Eliminating thousands of insurance payers and millions of individual payers will save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Could be, if you want to be a slave to the government the rest of your life.

I just applied for my gun license renewal today. It expires on the 11th of this month. The soonest appointment I could get is April 27th. This is one of many examples why not to hand the government our healthcare. If our licenses were ran by a private industry, they wouldn't allow this to happen. They would hire more people, they would reorganize; get rid of red tape that need not be involved. They would send out notifications months ago about the backup. Something........

Instead, they do nothing because it's run by government. You can't get an appointment when you want it? We are almost two months behind? Too bad, you lose. I don't want to see my healthcare ran the same way. When you eliminate competition, you eliminate the need to service the people properly. If my health insurance company is not meeting my expectations, I can always get another one. If a doctor or hospital is not meeting my expectations, I can always find another one.

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

They being Medicare most certainly do have a monopoly now. Medicare or Medicaid is the primary health insurance for 75% of the retired over 65. Most employer private insurance and Medigap is secondary insurance. MediAdvantage plans are jointly funded by Medicare and a private insurance which operate under Medicare coverage and reimbursement rules.

If there actually existed a free market in private insurance, then it might actually serve some purpose in controlling Medicare. However, the opposite is the reality today. Private insurance bases it's coverage on Medicare and Medicaid coverage which is based on recommendations from healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment and service providers, and beneficiaries. Although rates are negotiated between private insurance and providers, the Medicare reimbursement rates set the standard. Whenever Medicare reimbursement rates increase, providers re-negotiate their contracts with insurance companies so rates don't vary much between Medicare and insurance companies.

Rates cannot be different for patients having different kinds of coverage. If they could, government patients would be charged 30% more than private so they didn't have to take a loss on those patients. The way they get around that is to charge everybody higher rates to recoup those losses.

The places that don't do that refuse new government patients unless of course, it's an emergency. They can keep their rates lower with mostly private insurance, thus get more contracts with insurance companies. This is why estimates by Sander's and Warren are flawed. They figured the cost to cover everybody based on what government pays now. A true cost would be what they pay for government patients now, plus an extra 30% because private insurance will no longer be there to make up those losses.

I not sure we are on the same page. When I say rate, I'm speaking of insurance reimbursement rate.

Medicare reimbursement rates are based on actually cost of the service. CMS surveys a cross of all medicare providers collecting data on the cost all service withing a region. They compare those costs with current reimbursement rates to see if an adjustment is needed. Providers can also petition CMS to adjust rates.

Medicaid basically follows Medicare guidelines and coverage. However, since Medicaid is jointly funded by the federal government and the state, Medicaid reimbursement rates may vary quite a bit depending on the state.

Medicare reimbursement rates are used as a basis in insurance company contract negotiations with service providers. Insurance company negotiated rates may be higher or lower depending on how badly the insurance company or the service provider wants the agreement. For example if an insurance company believes they do have enough urologists to serve their customers, then they may offer a contract with significantly higher rates than Medicare. Likewise if they have a sufficient number they may offer less. Although insurance company reimbursement rates are considered confidential, one study shows they average abut 5% higher than Medicare rates.

It's certainly true that some healthcare providers lose money on Medicaid patients in states with low reimbursement rates. That is rarely the case with Medicare. If not, then 93% of primary care physicians, 95% of specialist, and nearly 100% of all major general hospitals would not be accepting Medicare.

Maybe I am missing something but I do not see how private insurance improves the quality of healthcare. Most private insurance plans today use a network of contracted healthcare providers. For the most part, these providers are not selected based on quality of service but rather who will accept the lowest reimbursement rate. When members elect to go out of network to seek better care, they find themselves either without coverage or serve financial penalties.
Primary Care Physicians Accepting Medicare: A Snapshot

 

[Frankeneinstein]

I much prefer the way many Americans wait for healthcare because they can't afford it.

Canadians wait whether they can afford it or not and pay for it whether they use it or not...I have never met anyone in the states who has had to wait more than a few hours for any type of care and the more serious it is the sooner they are seen...Neil Young is one of many canadians who reject the canadian health care system in favor of ours.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Could be, if you want to be a slave to the government the rest of your life.

I just applied for my gun license renewal today. It expires on the 11th of this month. The soonest appointment I could get is April 27th. This is one of many examples why not to hand the government our healthcare. If our licenses were ran by a private industry, they wouldn't allow this to happen. They would hire more people, they would reorganize; get rid of red tape that need not be involved. They would send out notifications months ago about the backup. Something........

Instead, they do nothing because it's run by government. You can't get an appointment when you want it? We are almost two months behind? Too bad, you lose. I don't want to see my healthcare ran the same way. When you eliminate competition, you eliminate the need to service the people properly. If my health insurance company is not meeting my expectations, I can always get another one. If a doctor or hospital is not meeting my expectations, I can always find another one.

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

They being Medicare most certainly do have a monopoly now. Medicare or Medicaid is the primary health insurance for 75% of the retired over 65. Most employer private insurance and Medigap is secondary insurance. MediAdvantage plans are jointly funded by Medicare and a private insurance which operate under Medicare coverage and reimbursement rules.

If there actually existed a free market in private insurance, then it might actually serve some purpose in controlling Medicare. However, the opposite is the reality today. Private insurance bases it's coverage on Medicare and Medicaid coverage which is based on recommendations from healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment and service providers, and beneficiaries. Although rates are negotiated between private insurance and providers, the Medicare reimbursement rates set the standard. Whenever Medicare reimbursement rates increase, providers re-negotiate their contracts with insurance companies so rates don't vary much between Medicare and insurance companies.

Rates cannot be different for patients having different kinds of coverage. If they could, government patients would be charged 30% more than private so they didn't have to take a loss on those patients. The way they get around that is to charge everybody higher rates to recoup those losses.

The places that don't do that refuse new government patients unless of course, it's an emergency. They can keep their rates lower with mostly private insurance, thus get more contracts with insurance companies. This is why estimates by Sander's and Warren are flawed. They figured the cost to cover everybody based on what government pays now. A true cost would be what they pay for government patients now, plus an extra 30% because private insurance will no longer be there to make up those losses.

I not sure we are on the same page. When I say rate, I'm speaking of insurance reimbursement rate.

Medicare reimbursement rates are based on actually cost of the service. CMS surveys a cross of all medicare providers collecting data on the cost all service withing a region. They compare those costs with current reimbursement rates to see if an adjustment is needed. Providers can also petition CMS to adjust rates.

Medicaid basically follows Medicare guidelines and coverage. However, since Medicaid is jointly funded by the federal government and the state, Medicaid reimbursement rates may vary quite a bit depending on the state.

Medicare reimbursement rates are used as a basis in insurance company contract negotiations with service providers. Insurance company negotiated rates may be higher or lower depending on how badly the insurance company or the service provider wants the agreement. For example if an insurance company believes they do have enough urologists to serve their customers, then they may offer a contract with significantly higher rates than Medicare. Likewise if they have a sufficient number they may offer less. Although insurance company reimbursement rates are considered confidential, one study shows they average abut 5% higher than Medicare rates.

It's certainly true that some healthcare providers lose money on Medicaid patients in states with low reimbursement rates. That is rarely the case with Medicare. If not, then 93% of primary care physicians, 95% of specialist, and nearly 100% of all major general hospitals would not be accepting Medicare.

Maybe I am missing something but I do not see how private insurance improves the quality of healthcare. Most private insurance plans today use a network of contracted healthcare providers. For the most part, these providers are not selected based on quality of service but rather who will accept the lowest reimbursement rate. When members elect to go out of network to seek better care, they find themselves either without coverage or serve financial penalties.
Primary Care Physicians Accepting Medicare: A Snapshot

Then please explain why when clinics and hospitals close down, it's usually in lower income areas saturated with mostly government clientele. These places and personnel depend on private insurance to pick up their losses from government plans. Without them, there is nobody to recoup those losses from.

In our current system, pirate and government plans work hand and hand. What the Democrats are talking about is taking one of those hands away. Government healthcare would be a waste anyway since everybody is going about this the wrong way. The first step should be finding ways to reduce medical costs, then figuring out a way to pay for them.

 

[Flopper]

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

You're a funny guy ray. Corporations are so anti monopoly.

The payer is single dumbass.

WTF do you mean the payer is single? Medicare for all is government healthcare. If that's what everybody has to use, then they make the calls.

No, government healthcare is when government delivers the healthcare. Under Medicare for All, goverment replaces the insurance company. Your claim that people will be slaves to the government is pure speculation and IMHO is an exaggeration. What Medicare for All will look like, is completely undefined. At this point in time, it is a concept to move everyone with primary private health insurance to the existing Medicare system or some similar plan at some undefined date.

Medicare for All will most probably not be Medicare as we known and it will not it be for all. I believe the most likely outcome will be the gradual lowering of the Medicare age requirement in order to remove older adults from private insurance. It could also include people that have very expensive lifetime treatments such End Stage Renal failure which Medicare now pays 80% of the cost regardless of age. If this is where Medicare for All ends up, it will drastically reduce the cost of private insurance.

I think what you fail to understand is the difference with money between the state and private insurance. When you pay your premium with private insurance, that money gets invested. The profits from those investments helps to pay the claims. With government, they take your money and put it under a mattress until needed gaining no profit.

Insurance companies also have divisions to detect fraud. That saves them billions of dollars. Government? Unless somebody happens to notice something very strange, Medicare and Medicaid get ripped off tens of billions of dollars every year.

You are correct on one thing, and that is we don't know what a Medicare for All system will look like. But if we allow it to happen, it will be nearly impossible to change back once it's realized as a failure. Then we will be stuck with a worse system than we have now.

My proposition is this: we can have both. We take all the people with preexisting conditions that can't afford high insurance rates, and allow them to buy into Medicare. That removes all the high risk patients from the insurance pool which would greatly lower insurance costs. Unlike ObamaCare, Medicare is relatively affordable, and the coverage is superior to Commie Care plans.

Then both sides can be happy, because that is a more than fair compromise between government and private coverage.

I believe that we need to shift the cost of the most costly diseases to treat to Medicare. Medicare only covers two diseases for those under 65, End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). The way it works is Medicare pays 80% of the cost of treatment. In most cases, the person can keep their current insurance and Medicare reimburses the Insurance company for treatments for those specific disease. The insurance company determines if a subscriber has been diagnosed and then applies to Medicare for reimbursement.

I believe the list of diseases should be expanded. It would have a major impact on insurance premiums without getting into the huge hassle involved with pre-existing conditions. Most important is there would be little legislation required and the current healthcare system would remain intact.

 

[Flopper]

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

They being Medicare most certainly do have a monopoly now. Medicare or Medicaid is the primary health insurance for 75% of the retired over 65. Most employer private insurance and Medigap is secondary insurance. MediAdvantage plans are jointly funded by Medicare and a private insurance which operate under Medicare coverage and reimbursement rules.

If there actually existed a free market in private insurance, then it might actually serve some purpose in controlling Medicare. However, the opposite is the reality today. Private insurance bases it's coverage on Medicare and Medicaid coverage which is based on recommendations from healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment and service providers, and beneficiaries. Although rates are negotiated between private insurance and providers, the Medicare reimbursement rates set the standard. Whenever Medicare reimbursement rates increase, providers re-negotiate their contracts with insurance companies so rates don't vary much between Medicare and insurance companies.

Rates cannot be different for patients having different kinds of coverage. If they could, government patients would be charged 30% more than private so they didn't have to take a loss on those patients. The way they get around that is to charge everybody higher rates to recoup those losses.

The places that don't do that refuse new government patients unless of course, it's an emergency. They can keep their rates lower with mostly private insurance, thus get more contracts with insurance companies. This is why estimates by Sander's and Warren are flawed. They figured the cost to cover everybody based on what government pays now. A true cost would be what they pay for government patients now, plus an extra 30% because private insurance will no longer be there to make up those losses.

I not sure we are on the same page. When I say rate, I'm speaking of insurance reimbursement rate.

Medicare reimbursement rates are based on actually cost of the service. CMS surveys a cross of all medicare providers collecting data on the cost all service withing a region. They compare those costs with current reimbursement rates to see if an adjustment is needed. Providers can also petition CMS to adjust rates.

Medicaid basically follows Medicare guidelines and coverage. However, since Medicaid is jointly funded by the federal government and the state, Medicaid reimbursement rates may vary quite a bit depending on the state.

Medicare reimbursement rates are used as a basis in insurance company contract negotiations with service providers. Insurance company negotiated rates may be higher or lower depending on how badly the insurance company or the service provider wants the agreement. For example if an insurance company believes they do have enough urologists to serve their customers, then they may offer a contract with significantly higher rates than Medicare. Likewise if they have a sufficient number they may offer less. Although insurance company reimbursement rates are considered confidential, one study shows they average abut 5% higher than Medicare rates.

It's certainly true that some healthcare providers lose money on Medicaid patients in states with low reimbursement rates. That is rarely the case with Medicare. If not, then 93% of primary care physicians, 95% of specialist, and nearly 100% of all major general hospitals would not be accepting Medicare.

Maybe I am missing something but I do not see how private insurance improves the quality of healthcare. Most private insurance plans today use a network of contracted healthcare providers. For the most part, these providers are not selected based on quality of service but rather who will accept the lowest reimbursement rate. When members elect to go out of network to seek better care, they find themselves either without coverage or serve financial penalties.
Primary Care Physicians Accepting Medicare: A Snapshot

Then please explain why when clinics and hospitals close down, it's usually in lower income areas saturated with mostly government clientele. These places and personnel depend on private insurance to pick up their losses from government plans. Without them, there is nobody to recoup those losses from.

In our current system, pirate and government plans work hand and hand. What the Democrats are talking about is taking one of those hands away. Government healthcare would be a waste anyway since everybody is going about this the wrong way. The first step should be finding ways to reduce medical costs, then figuring out a way to pay for them.

There are several problems in low income areas that lead healthcare providers to bankruptcy in a number of states. First, most patients are generally covered by Medicaid, which has much lower reimbursement rates than Medicare or private insurance in many states. The few patient that have private insurance generally do not pay their medical bills, deductibles and copay's. Second, patients have more serious healthcare problems than in more affluent areas, due to drugs, alcohol, crime, and generally poor hygiene. Lastly, who wants to work in ghetto? Contrary to TV and books, most healthcare professions do not like working in high crime area serving patients who are the dregs of society, thus it's harder to hire good people that will stay. Today many healthcare facilities in really bad areas are satellite locations for large healthcare facilities elsewhere. They often get grants from the state, local, or federal government or just write off losses as part of their service to the community. I don't see any linkage to goverment.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

They being Medicare most certainly do have a monopoly now. Medicare or Medicaid is the primary health insurance for 75% of the retired over 65. Most employer private insurance and Medigap is secondary insurance. MediAdvantage plans are jointly funded by Medicare and a private insurance which operate under Medicare coverage and reimbursement rules.

If there actually existed a free market in private insurance, then it might actually serve some purpose in controlling Medicare. However, the opposite is the reality today. Private insurance bases it's coverage on Medicare and Medicaid coverage which is based on recommendations from healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment and service providers, and beneficiaries. Although rates are negotiated between private insurance and providers, the Medicare reimbursement rates set the standard. Whenever Medicare reimbursement rates increase, providers re-negotiate their contracts with insurance companies so rates don't vary much between Medicare and insurance companies.

Rates cannot be different for patients having different kinds of coverage. If they could, government patients would be charged 30% more than private so they didn't have to take a loss on those patients. The way they get around that is to charge everybody higher rates to recoup those losses.

The places that don't do that refuse new government patients unless of course, it's an emergency. They can keep their rates lower with mostly private insurance, thus get more contracts with insurance companies. This is why estimates by Sander's and Warren are flawed. They figured the cost to cover everybody based on what government pays now. A true cost would be what they pay for government patients now, plus an extra 30% because private insurance will no longer be there to make up those losses.

I not sure we are on the same page. When I say rate, I'm speaking of insurance reimbursement rate.

Medicare reimbursement rates are based on actually cost of the service. CMS surveys a cross of all medicare providers collecting data on the cost all service withing a region. They compare those costs with current reimbursement rates to see if an adjustment is needed. Providers can also petition CMS to adjust rates.

Medicaid basically follows Medicare guidelines and coverage. However, since Medicaid is jointly funded by the federal government and the state, Medicaid reimbursement rates may vary quite a bit depending on the state.

Medicare reimbursement rates are used as a basis in insurance company contract negotiations with service providers. Insurance company negotiated rates may be higher or lower depending on how badly the insurance company or the service provider wants the agreement. For example if an insurance company believes they do have enough urologists to serve their customers, then they may offer a contract with significantly higher rates than Medicare. Likewise if they have a sufficient number they may offer less. Although insurance company reimbursement rates are considered confidential, one study shows they average abut 5% higher than Medicare rates.

It's certainly true that some healthcare providers lose money on Medicaid patients in states with low reimbursement rates. That is rarely the case with Medicare. If not, then 93% of primary care physicians, 95% of specialist, and nearly 100% of all major general hospitals would not be accepting Medicare.

Maybe I am missing something but I do not see how private insurance improves the quality of healthcare. Most private insurance plans today use a network of contracted healthcare providers. For the most part, these providers are not selected based on quality of service but rather who will accept the lowest reimbursement rate. When members elect to go out of network to seek better care, they find themselves either without coverage or serve financial penalties.
Primary Care Physicians Accepting Medicare: A Snapshot

Then please explain why when clinics and hospitals close down, it's usually in lower income areas saturated with mostly government clientele. These places and personnel depend on private insurance to pick up their losses from government plans. Without them, there is nobody to recoup those losses from.

In our current system, pirate and government plans work hand and hand. What the Democrats are talking about is taking one of those hands away. Government healthcare would be a waste anyway since everybody is going about this the wrong way. The first step should be finding ways to reduce medical costs, then figuring out a way to pay for them.

There are several problems in low income areas that lead healthcare providers to bankruptcy in a number of states. First, most patients are generally covered by Medicaid, which has much lower reimbursement rates than Medicare or private insurance in many states. The few patient that have private insurance generally do not pay their medical bills, deductibles and copay's. Second, patients have more serious healthcare problems than in more affluent areas, due to drugs, alcohol, crime, and generally poor hygiene. Lastly, who wants to work in ghetto? Contrary to TV and books, most healthcare professions do not like working in high crime area serving patients who are the dregs of society, thus it's harder to hire good people that will stay. Today many healthcare facilities in really bad areas are satellite locations for large healthcare facilities elsewhere. They often get grants from the state, local, or federal government or just write off losses as part of their service to the community. I don't see any linkage to goverment.

Given the fact government only pays a percentage of costs for patient care, I think government has everything to do with it. My sister works at the world renown Cleveland Clinic. She takes the shortest route which is through the heart of the ghetto. The Clinic is loaded with the best people in the business. They have no problem finding medical personnel to fill their positions.

So working in a (lower) high-crime area is not the problem. The problem is inner-city hospitals have mostly government patients, and few private pay. With the Clinic, they attract people from every walk of life since they have such high rankings in the patient care department. They also attract people from all over the world (with money) to get their care here. When you go to their downtown campus, you are the one who feels like the foreigner.

 

[Bo Didleysquat]

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

You're a funny guy ray. Corporations are so anti monopoly.

The payer is single dumbass.

WTF do you mean the payer is single? Medicare for all is government healthcare. If that's what everybody has to use, then they make the calls.

No, government healthcare is when government delivers the healthcare. Under Medicare for All, goverment replaces the insurance company. Your claim that people will be slaves to the government is pure speculation and IMHO is an exaggeration. What Medicare for All will look like, is completely undefined. At this point in time, it is a concept to move everyone with primary private health insurance to the existing Medicare system or some similar plan at some undefined date.

Medicare for All will most probably not be Medicare as we known and it will not it be for all. I believe the most likely outcome will be the gradual lowering of the Medicare age requirement in order to remove older adults from private insurance. It could also include people that have very expensive lifetime treatments such End Stage Renal failure which Medicare now pays 80% of the cost regardless of age. If this is where Medicare for All ends up, it will drastically reduce the cost of private insurance.

I think what you fail to understand is the difference with money between the state and private insurance. When you pay your premium with private insurance, that money gets invested. The profits from those investments helps to pay the claims. With government, they take your money and put it under a mattress until needed gaining no profit.

Insurance companies also have divisions to detect fraud. That saves them billions of dollars. Government? Unless somebody happens to notice something very strange, Medicare and Medicaid get ripped off tens of billions of dollars every year.

You are correct on one thing, and that is we don't know what a Medicare for All system will look like. But if we allow it to happen, it will be nearly impossible to change back once it's realized as a failure. Then we will be stuck with a worse system than we have now.

My proposition is this: we can have both. We take all the people with preexisting conditions that can't afford high insurance rates, and allow them to buy into Medicare. That removes all the high risk patients from the insurance pool which would greatly lower insurance costs. Unlike ObamaCare, Medicare is relatively affordable, and the coverage is superior to Commie Care plans.

Then both sides can be happy, because that is a more than fair compromise between government and private coverage.

Of course, we protect private capital from risk and put that on taxpayers.

Medicare is great. The only reason no one "knows" what doing that to include all would "look like" is because private capital refuses to give up it's stranglehold.

 

[Bo Didleysquat]

They being Medicare most certainly do have a monopoly now. Medicare or Medicaid is the primary health insurance for 75% of the retired over 65. Most employer private insurance and Medigap is secondary insurance. MediAdvantage plans are jointly funded by Medicare and a private insurance which operate under Medicare coverage and reimbursement rules.

If there actually existed a free market in private insurance, then it might actually serve some purpose in controlling Medicare. However, the opposite is the reality today. Private insurance bases it's coverage on Medicare and Medicaid coverage which is based on recommendations from healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment and service providers, and beneficiaries. Although rates are negotiated between private insurance and providers, the Medicare reimbursement rates set the standard. Whenever Medicare reimbursement rates increase, providers re-negotiate their contracts with insurance companies so rates don't vary much between Medicare and insurance companies.

Rates cannot be different for patients having different kinds of coverage. If they could, government patients would be charged 30% more than private so they didn't have to take a loss on those patients. The way they get around that is to charge everybody higher rates to recoup those losses.

The places that don't do that refuse new government patients unless of course, it's an emergency. They can keep their rates lower with mostly private insurance, thus get more contracts with insurance companies. This is why estimates by Sander's and Warren are flawed. They figured the cost to cover everybody based on what government pays now. A true cost would be what they pay for government patients now, plus an extra 30% because private insurance will no longer be there to make up those losses.

I not sure we are on the same page. When I say rate, I'm speaking of insurance reimbursement rate.

Medicare reimbursement rates are based on actually cost of the service. CMS surveys a cross of all medicare providers collecting data on the cost all service withing a region. They compare those costs with current reimbursement rates to see if an adjustment is needed. Providers can also petition CMS to adjust rates.

Medicaid basically follows Medicare guidelines and coverage. However, since Medicaid is jointly funded by the federal government and the state, Medicaid reimbursement rates may vary quite a bit depending on the state.

Medicare reimbursement rates are used as a basis in insurance company contract negotiations with service providers. Insurance company negotiated rates may be higher or lower depending on how badly the insurance company or the service provider wants the agreement. For example if an insurance company believes they do have enough urologists to serve their customers, then they may offer a contract with significantly higher rates than Medicare. Likewise if they have a sufficient number they may offer less. Although insurance company reimbursement rates are considered confidential, one study shows they average abut 5% higher than Medicare rates.

It's certainly true that some healthcare providers lose money on Medicaid patients in states with low reimbursement rates. That is rarely the case with Medicare. If not, then 93% of primary care physicians, 95% of specialist, and nearly 100% of all major general hospitals would not be accepting Medicare.

Maybe I am missing something but I do not see how private insurance improves the quality of healthcare. Most private insurance plans today use a network of contracted healthcare providers. For the most part, these providers are not selected based on quality of service but rather who will accept the lowest reimbursement rate. When members elect to go out of network to seek better care, they find themselves either without coverage or serve financial penalties.
Primary Care Physicians Accepting Medicare: A Snapshot

Then please explain why when clinics and hospitals close down, it's usually in lower income areas saturated with mostly government clientele. These places and personnel depend on private insurance to pick up their losses from government plans. Without them, there is nobody to recoup those losses from.

In our current system, pirate and government plans work hand and hand. What the Democrats are talking about is taking one of those hands away. Government healthcare would be a waste anyway since everybody is going about this the wrong way. The first step should be finding ways to reduce medical costs, then figuring out a way to pay for them.

There are several problems in low income areas that lead healthcare providers to bankruptcy in a number of states. First, most patients are generally covered by Medicaid, which has much lower reimbursement rates than Medicare or private insurance in many states. The few patient that have private insurance generally do not pay their medical bills, deductibles and copay's. Second, patients have more serious healthcare problems than in more affluent areas, due to drugs, alcohol, crime, and generally poor hygiene. Lastly, who wants to work in ghetto? Contrary to TV and books, most healthcare professions do not like working in high crime area serving patients who are the dregs of society, thus it's harder to hire good people that will stay. Today many healthcare facilities in really bad areas are satellite locations for large healthcare facilities elsewhere. They often get grants from the state, local, or federal government or just write off losses as part of their service to the community. I don't see any linkage to goverment.

Given the fact government only pays a percentage of costs for patient care, I think government has everything to do with it. My sister works at the world renown Cleveland Clinic. She takes the shortest route which is through the heart of the ghetto. The Clinic is loaded with the best people in the business. They have no problem finding medical personnel to fill their positions.

So working in a (lower) high-crime area is not the problem. The problem is inner-city hospitals have mostly government patients, and few private pay. With the Clinic, they attract people from every walk of life since they have such high rankings in the patient care department. They also attract people from all over the world (with money) to get their care here. When you go to their downtown campus, you are the one who feels like the foreigner.

Only fragile victimy white guys like you, take your gun hon, Jesus what a dweeb.

 

[Bo Didleysquat]

Assuming we maintain a multi payer system which is mostly likely, MSAs are great idea. However, I don't see the logic in making MSAs mandatory when the insurance itself it not mandatory.

Most people think there are just two payers in the healthcare system, the patient and the insurance company. Whatever the insurance company doesn't pay, the patient pays. What could be simpler. This is a huge oversimplification and inaccurate. Eight in 10 people on traditional Medicare have some type of supplemental insurance, including employer-sponsored insurance, Medigap, and Medicaid. Having multiple plans is also common with non-retires, VA, Medicaid, Medicare, temporary insurance, and multiple employers. In case of accidents, we have to add in car insurance companies, and other accident insurance.

The first problem in a multi payer system is determining who will be the primary, and secondary and then determining how benefits are coordinated between payers. What makes the situation more complicated is that all the insurance companies have different rules that vary by state. Medicaid has different rules and reimbursement rates that also vary also by state. Also Medicaid coverage outside of the state varies.

In a true single payer system, there is no coordination of benefits, no primary and secondary payers, and no patient billing. There is only one payer whose rules and coverage is the same for all patients in every state, and that's Medicare. Eliminating thousands of insurance payers and millions of individual payers will save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Could be, if you want to be a slave to the government the rest of your life.

I just applied for my gun license renewal today. It expires on the 11th of this month. The soonest appointment I could get is April 27th. This is one of many examples why not to hand the government our healthcare. If our licenses were ran by a private industry, they wouldn't allow this to happen. They would hire more people, they would reorganize; get rid of red tape that need not be involved. They would send out notifications months ago about the backup. Something........

Instead, they do nothing because it's run by government. You can't get an appointment when you want it? We are almost two months behind? Too bad, you lose. I don't want to see my healthcare ran the same way. When you eliminate competition, you eliminate the need to service the people properly. If my health insurance company is not meeting my expectations, I can always get another one. If a doctor or hospital is not meeting my expectations, I can always find another one.

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

You're a funny guy ray. Corporations are so anti monopoly.

The payer is single dumbass.

WTF do you mean the payer is single? Medicare for all is government healthcare. If that's what everybody has to use, then they make the calls.

You're an idiot Ray, Jesus. Kept my doctor and all when I shifted over.

Turns out I called for an appt yesterday, got in the next day, renowned major metropolitan downtown research medical center hospital.

Maybe the sky is falling elsewhere.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You think Medicare doesn't have administrators? You think that Medicare doesn't process bills? If Medicare is so much cheaper, why does our government hire insurance companies to process Medicare and Medicaid claims? Do you ever see insurance companies asking Medicare for help because they can't run their business?

If you think insurance companies are making too much money on health insurance, then what's the next step, car insurance? Should government handle all our coverage for autos and trucks? What about renters insurance? Why doesn't government run that as well because it would bring down costs? House insurance? Life insurance?

I often tell my post office story when it comes to this subject. I was standing in a long line at the PO during Obama's first term. An elderly black lady in front of me said out loud "This is ridiculous. Why are they letting all of us stand here and they only have one postal worker behind the counter???" To that I replied "Don't look now, but these are the same people that want to run your healthcare." Oh did she turn around and give me a dirty look.....

I worked for the USPS a long time ago. They have a concept called "needs of the service", as in "work schedules are subject to needs of the service". In practice, what that means is that if there are still customers already in line when it comes time for the Post Office to close up and the workers to go home, then the workers have to stay however long it takes to help all those customers . . . and get paid overtime for doing it.

Welcome to the government's idea of "efficiency".

I don't know if the post office is the worst or not, but at least ours is really bad over here. Currently I'm waiting on a package for the last couple of weeks. Granted it is from overseas, but I went to my tracking number that was sent to me through email. Early last week, they scheduled my package to be here last Monday. I still haven't received it.

Coronavirus? Maybe that has something to do with it, but at least tell me what's going on instead of making promises they can't keep. At the very least, send us literate mail carriers who can match the names and numbers on the mailbox to the letters.

Hate to break it to you, but when I worked there, most of my co-workers had at least a Bachelor's degree, and many of them had Master's. Plenty of time and money to take college courses, after all.

Problems like that are due to apathy, and a strict regimentation that encourages people not to think outside the box.

The PO went from one extreme to another. Years ago, carriers used to brag about delivering mail, and going home for two or three hours to take a nap. They usually gave the carrier a route in the neighborhood they lived in.

These stories were everywhere at the time. The Republican House in the 90's heard of these stories and complaints, and suggested that the PO be privatized instead of the government running it. That sounded the alarm. It went from a nice cushy job to a slave driven job. Since that time, they constantly hounded their carriers to move faster and faster. They are always riding their workers. My tax preparer used to be a carrier, and so is my cousin and a friend I used to hang round with. My cousin told me of a story where the carrier was so mad, he left the building screaming at the supervisor, and dropped of a heart attack right at the door.

It was nearly impossible to get a job at the PO years ago. Now it's hard for them to find people to work there. So there is only so good of worker you're going to get under those conditions. It shouldn't be like it was years ago, but it shouldn't be like it is today. They need someplace in the middle.

Every post office I go into is staffed and operating just fine thanks.

As far as you know. The cuts usually come in the production areas that the public doesn't see.

 

[debbiedowner]

WSJ News Exclusive | U.S. Weighs Paying Hospitals for Treating Uninsured Coronavirus Patients

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Could be, if you want to be a slave to the government the rest of your life.

I just applied for my gun license renewal today. It expires on the 11th of this month. The soonest appointment I could get is April 27th. This is one of many examples why not to hand the government our healthcare. If our licenses were ran by a private industry, they wouldn't allow this to happen. They would hire more people, they would reorganize; get rid of red tape that need not be involved. They would send out notifications months ago about the backup. Something........

Instead, they do nothing because it's run by government. You can't get an appointment when you want it? We are almost two months behind? Too bad, you lose. I don't want to see my healthcare ran the same way. When you eliminate competition, you eliminate the need to service the people properly. If my health insurance company is not meeting my expectations, I can always get another one. If a doctor or hospital is not meeting my expectations, I can always find another one.

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

You're a funny guy ray. Corporations are so anti monopoly.

The payer is single dumbass.

WTF do you mean the payer is single? Medicare for all is government healthcare. If that's what everybody has to use, then they make the calls.

You're an idiot Ray, Jesus. Kept my doctor and all when I shifted over.

Turns out I called for an appt yesterday, got in the next day, renowned major metropolitan downtown research medical center hospital.

Maybe the sky is falling elsewhere.

You can keep your doctor and hospital if you can afford it. Commie Care only offers one insurance company for my clinic that I've been going to all of my life. They wanted a third of my net pay, and it didn't cover anything. 7K out of pocket, 7K deductible, no prescription coverage, no dental, a $50.00 doctor office copay. It was only good if you got hit by a bus.

You must be in the lower income bracket and get a sizable subsidy. They didn't give me shit. I have to pay over $200.00 a month just for my prescriptions and test equipment. HTF can I afford that and pay a third of what I make to a plan that doesn't do me any good?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

You're a funny guy ray. Corporations are so anti monopoly.

The payer is single dumbass.

WTF do you mean the payer is single? Medicare for all is government healthcare. If that's what everybody has to use, then they make the calls.

No, government healthcare is when government delivers the healthcare. Under Medicare for All, goverment replaces the insurance company. Your claim that people will be slaves to the government is pure speculation and IMHO is an exaggeration. What Medicare for All will look like, is completely undefined. At this point in time, it is a concept to move everyone with primary private health insurance to the existing Medicare system or some similar plan at some undefined date.

Medicare for All will most probably not be Medicare as we known and it will not it be for all. I believe the most likely outcome will be the gradual lowering of the Medicare age requirement in order to remove older adults from private insurance. It could also include people that have very expensive lifetime treatments such End Stage Renal failure which Medicare now pays 80% of the cost regardless of age. If this is where Medicare for All ends up, it will drastically reduce the cost of private insurance.

I think what you fail to understand is the difference with money between the state and private insurance. When you pay your premium with private insurance, that money gets invested. The profits from those investments helps to pay the claims. With government, they take your money and put it under a mattress until needed gaining no profit.

Insurance companies also have divisions to detect fraud. That saves them billions of dollars. Government? Unless somebody happens to notice something very strange, Medicare and Medicaid get ripped off tens of billions of dollars every year.

You are correct on one thing, and that is we don't know what a Medicare for All system will look like. But if we allow it to happen, it will be nearly impossible to change back once it's realized as a failure. Then we will be stuck with a worse system than we have now.

My proposition is this: we can have both. We take all the people with preexisting conditions that can't afford high insurance rates, and allow them to buy into Medicare. That removes all the high risk patients from the insurance pool which would greatly lower insurance costs. Unlike ObamaCare, Medicare is relatively affordable, and the coverage is superior to Commie Care plans.

Then both sides can be happy, because that is a more than fair compromise between government and private coverage.

Of course, we protect private capital from risk and put that on taxpayers.

Medicare is great. The only reason no one "knows" what doing that to include all would "look like" is because private capital refuses to give up it's stranglehold.

Using private entities, you have choices. If government monopolizes the healthcare industry, then we are slaves to their demands. If you think some politician gives a shit about whether you have healthcare or not, you are fooling yourself. The Democrats only ploy here is to create as many government dependents as they can. The more government dependents, the more likely Democrat voters. DumBama created over 40 million new government dependents between Commie Care and food stamps alone. It was no accident either.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Having worked in that business for ten years, I can tell you that it's government who makes billing so complicated and costly. One place I worked at for five years, we had meetings every Monday morning. Every other one of those Mondays had to do with new government requirements for billing either for government or private insurance patients. It used to drive the office women crazy.

Insurance companies are quite aware of billing complexity. Their claim is that people use their insurance for nickel and dime claims, instead of just major claims. So you see your doctor, the bill is a hundred bucks or so, and off to the paperwork arena for the fight.

The solution to that problem would be mandatory medical savings accounts. Say 1% of your gross pay deducted from your check just like the taxes you pay. You would choose the private bank or institution that handles that account. Then when you go to the hospital or ER, you pay by swiping your MSA card just like a credit card. The bill is paid in full on the spot which would lower their cost, you wouldn't need as many people working at the doctors or hospital, it would keep insurance companies out of the mix so less expense to them, and most people would not miss 1% of their pay.

Assuming we maintain a multi payer system which is mostly likely, MSAs are great idea. However, I don't see the logic in making MSAs mandatory when the insurance itself it not mandatory.

Most people think there are just two payers in the healthcare system, the patient and the insurance company. Whatever the insurance company doesn't pay, the patient pays. What could be simpler. This is a huge oversimplification and inaccurate. Eight in 10 people on traditional Medicare have some type of supplemental insurance, including employer-sponsored insurance, Medigap, and Medicaid. Having multiple plans is also common with non-retires, VA, Medicaid, Medicare, temporary insurance, and multiple employers. In case of accidents, we have to add in car insurance companies, and other accident insurance.

The first problem in a multi payer system is determining who will be the primary, and secondary and then determining how benefits are coordinated between payers. What makes the situation more complicated is that all the insurance companies have different rules that vary by state. Medicaid has different rules and reimbursement rates that also vary also by state. Also Medicaid coverage outside of the state varies.

In a true single payer system, there is no coordination of benefits, no primary and secondary payers, and no patient billing. There is only one payer whose rules and coverage is the same for all patients in every state, and that's Medicare. Eliminating thousands of insurance payers and millions of individual payers will save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Could be, if you want to be a slave to the government the rest of your life.

I just applied for my gun license renewal today. It expires on the 11th of this month. The soonest appointment I could get is April 27th. This is one of many examples why not to hand the government our healthcare. If our licenses were ran by a private industry, they wouldn't allow this to happen. They would hire more people, they would reorganize; get rid of red tape that need not be involved. They would send out notifications months ago about the backup. Something........

Instead, they do nothing because it's run by government. You can't get an appointment when you want it? We are almost two months behind? Too bad, you lose. I don't want to see my healthcare ran the same way. When you eliminate competition, you eliminate the need to service the people properly. If my health insurance company is not meeting my expectations, I can always get another one. If a doctor or hospital is not meeting my expectations, I can always find another one.

I have had medicare for nearly 15 years. I have never had to file a claim, since they were always filed by the healthcare provider. I have never been any medical facility operated by the government. I have never had to change doctors. I have never had a claim denied that was for a valid charge. I have never had to appeal anything. I have never had to speak to a Medicare person. Since I have a Medicare supplement, I have never received a medical bill except for eye exams and dental work. I've never been told by a healthcare provider that they don't accept Medicare. I have never needed a referral. I have never been told by a doctor that a procedure I needed was not covered. During the 5 years we lived in an RV and traveled the country, I used Medicare in at least a dozens states across the country with no problems. IMHO, Medicare coverage should be available to everyone. It is far better than any health insurance, I have ever had.

Lastly, I have been in the hospital 5 times in the last 15 years, had two major surgeries, routinely see 4 doctors now, and my total medical bills during that time has got to exceed half million dollars. Exactly how is having Medicare coverage making me a slave to government?

You are not as of yet because they don't have a monopoly yet. If they takeover healthcare for the entire country, they will, because insurance companies that specialize in health insurance will disappear, and that will give the government a monopoly.

Afterwords, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives. They can say you must weight X amount, or you will not get treated for anything. Smoker? Drink alcohol? Ride a motorcycle? Eat fast food???

Look at what Mooochelle tried to do in public schools. Look at Bloomberg and his idiotic thought of soda cups. Look at DumBama forcing restaurants to list calorie count on every item they sell.

Democrats are control freaks. Always were, and always will be.

Mars Candy And Michelle Obama Are Making Candy Bars Smaller — And Twitter Is FREAKING Out

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Fat in Japan? You're breaking the law.

We are discussing public health insurance, not government ownership of all hospitals. Try to stay focused.

We are discussing government control of the cash flow, which is effective ownership. Try not to be obtuse.

 

[Flopper]

They being Medicare most certainly do have a monopoly now. Medicare or Medicaid is the primary health insurance for 75% of the retired over 65. Most employer private insurance and Medigap is secondary insurance. MediAdvantage plans are jointly funded by Medicare and a private insurance which operate under Medicare coverage and reimbursement rules.

If there actually existed a free market in private insurance, then it might actually serve some purpose in controlling Medicare. However, the opposite is the reality today. Private insurance bases it's coverage on Medicare and Medicaid coverage which is based on recommendations from healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment and service providers, and beneficiaries. Although rates are negotiated between private insurance and providers, the Medicare reimbursement rates set the standard. Whenever Medicare reimbursement rates increase, providers re-negotiate their contracts with insurance companies so rates don't vary much between Medicare and insurance companies.

Rates cannot be different for patients having different kinds of coverage. If they could, government patients would be charged 30% more than private so they didn't have to take a loss on those patients. The way they get around that is to charge everybody higher rates to recoup those losses.

The places that don't do that refuse new government patients unless of course, it's an emergency. They can keep their rates lower with mostly private insurance, thus get more contracts with insurance companies. This is why estimates by Sander's and Warren are flawed. They figured the cost to cover everybody based on what government pays now. A true cost would be what they pay for government patients now, plus an extra 30% because private insurance will no longer be there to make up those losses.

I not sure we are on the same page. When I say rate, I'm speaking of insurance reimbursement rate.

Medicare reimbursement rates are based on actually cost of the service. CMS surveys a cross of all medicare providers collecting data on the cost all service withing a region. They compare those costs with current reimbursement rates to see if an adjustment is needed. Providers can also petition CMS to adjust rates.

Medicaid basically follows Medicare guidelines and coverage. However, since Medicaid is jointly funded by the federal government and the state, Medicaid reimbursement rates may vary quite a bit depending on the state.

Medicare reimbursement rates are used as a basis in insurance company contract negotiations with service providers. Insurance company negotiated rates may be higher or lower depending on how badly the insurance company or the service provider wants the agreement. For example if an insurance company believes they do have enough urologists to serve their customers, then they may offer a contract with significantly higher rates than Medicare. Likewise if they have a sufficient number they may offer less. Although insurance company reimbursement rates are considered confidential, one study shows they average abut 5% higher than Medicare rates.

It's certainly true that some healthcare providers lose money on Medicaid patients in states with low reimbursement rates. That is rarely the case with Medicare. If not, then 93% of primary care physicians, 95% of specialist, and nearly 100% of all major general hospitals would not be accepting Medicare.

Maybe I am missing something but I do not see how private insurance improves the quality of healthcare. Most private insurance plans today use a network of contracted healthcare providers. For the most part, these providers are not selected based on quality of service but rather who will accept the lowest reimbursement rate. When members elect to go out of network to seek better care, they find themselves either without coverage or serve financial penalties.
Primary Care Physicians Accepting Medicare: A Snapshot

Then please explain why when clinics and hospitals close down, it's usually in lower income areas saturated with mostly government clientele. These places and personnel depend on private insurance to pick up their losses from government plans. Without them, there is nobody to recoup those losses from.

In our current system, pirate and government plans work hand and hand. What the Democrats are talking about is taking one of those hands away. Government healthcare would be a waste anyway since everybody is going about this the wrong way. The first step should be finding ways to reduce medical costs, then figuring out a way to pay for them.

There are several problems in low income areas that lead healthcare providers to bankruptcy in a number of states. First, most patients are generally covered by Medicaid, which has much lower reimbursement rates than Medicare or private insurance in many states. The few patient that have private insurance generally do not pay their medical bills, deductibles and copay's. Second, patients have more serious healthcare problems than in more affluent areas, due to drugs, alcohol, crime, and generally poor hygiene. Lastly, who wants to work in ghetto? Contrary to TV and books, most healthcare professions do not like working in high crime area serving patients who are the dregs of society, thus it's harder to hire good people that will stay. Today many healthcare facilities in really bad areas are satellite locations for large healthcare facilities elsewhere. They often get grants from the state, local, or federal government or just write off losses as part of their service to the community. I don't see any linkage to goverment.

Given the fact government only pays a percentage of costs for patient care, I think government has everything to do with it. My sister works at the world renown Cleveland Clinic. She takes the shortest route which is through the heart of the ghetto. The Clinic is loaded with the best people in the business. They have no problem finding medical personnel to fill their positions.

So working in a (lower) high-crime area is not the problem. The problem is inner-city hospitals have mostly government patients, and few private pay. With the Clinic, they attract people from every walk of life since they have such high rankings in the patient care department. They also attract people from all over the world (with money) to get their care here. When you go to their downtown campus, you are the one who feels like the foreigner.

Practically all hospital closures have been in rural areas, not big cities. 41% of rural hospitals are losing money. 119 rural hospitals have closed since 2010. 430 rural hospitals are in danger of closing now. Medicare reimbursement rates are not the problem. A combination of low volume, low Medicaid reimbursements by states, a high rate of uninsured, and the inability of patients to pay insurance high deductibles and copay are the principal reasons for the closures.

The idea that low Medicare reimbursement rates are a major cause of financial problems is nonsense due to two factors. First reimbursement rates are based on actual costs supplied by healthcare providers in the region. And second, Medicare is far more liberal in when comes to billing for dependent procedures and followup visits. The reimbursement problem lies not with Medicare but with state run Medicaid which pays less than Medicare.

In regard to location of hospitals in the urban areas they are usually not located in really bad areas but some are. Many of them have satellite clinic location in very low income areas. How safe the area are varies with location.

Hospital Closures in Rural U.S. Reach a Crisis Point